


Annoying and Perfect

by orphan_account



Category: Welcome to Hell - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, reference to suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 17:58:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7542430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sock has been haunting Jonathan Combs for a while now, and Jon begins to notice an effect on his social life-- whatever remnants of a social life he had, that is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Annoying and Perfect

**Author's Note:**

> Quick warning: this is my first piece of fanfiction. It might not be that great. Who knows? I'll leave it to your discretion.  
> I hope you enjoy.

There are certain boundaries through which one must pass to gain new ranks in the strict social hierarchy of “Public School.” A letter jacket does not a jock make; façades may be built and accepted and judged, but boundaries are only passed when something deeper goes through intrinsic change or sudden reveal.

Jonathan Combs fit well within the rank of “moody teen with a dumb haircut, disillusioned with humanity.” His primary accessory—his headphones—amplified his affinity for this rank, creating a wall between himself and others that was visible but not entirely impenetrable.

“Social outcast” was a whole new rank for Jonathan Combs. He learned with apathetic bitterness that it was achieved from total comfort in perfect solitude, an unsettling aura of both vacant space and filled space around oneself, random laughter, and the occasional conversation with a ghost.

Not that it mattered. Sock was annoying, sure—annoying in that persistent, perfect way of his. Annoying in that way that makes you roll your eyes and scoff whenever he’s present and laugh whenever the memory of his stupid annoyingness creeps back into your mind—but he was company. Real company. He had no rank in the hierarchy, no posse or person to please but himself. He was worth keeping around if only to see him mess with other students on occasion.

Those other students that chose each day to sit a few seats further away from Jonathan Combs, despite not sitting at the same table as him in the first place. The ones that would speak in whispers when you laughed and it was certain you couldn’t hear them. The ones who would drop their gaze if they so much as felt your presence in the same hallway as them.

They exist, and they always have, but when he was just a moody teen with a dumb haircut, disillusioned with humanity—disillusioned, not detached—Jonathan was never their target of avoidance.

At lunch, Sock was rambling about stories he used to read. How silly, he thought, that the “good guys,” who were more grey morally than anything, would always win. It just wasn’t realistic. With how easy it is to hide a murder, you would think that more people would get away with—

“Don’t you see them?” Jon said.

“Um… Don’t I see who?” Sock turned around mid-air, searching for the dangerous “them.”

“Them. Everyone. All of them.” He spoke at normal volume—it’s not like it mattered if anyone heard. “They keep staring at me. They think I’m talking to myself.”

“Well… You kind of are talking to yourself. From their perspective, anyway.”

Jon’s head drooped. Sock floated closer, continuing, “But you’re not talking to yourself in, like, a bad way! It’s more like you’re having a conversation with the words in your head rather than the words in your mouth… And, anyway, talking to yourself is supposed to be a sign of intelligence! So, I don’t see what the problem is.”

“The problem is that none of them will talk to me—even less than before. I feel like I’m invisible.”

“… Being invisible isn’t so bad, either.”

Jon raised his head with frustration and an audible grunt. “Fine. If you like it, go be invisible somewhere else.”

He stood up and walked out. He felt a hundred eyes strain to look away from him and peer in the peripherals. His tray sat, food undisturbed.

 

The sun was disgusting and bright.

The higher-ups let students go outside on lunch hour, but no one but the popular and the socially rejected ever utilized the privilege.

A second privilege of this rank in the hierarchy: there were two pleasant bushes at the corner of the building with a small space in between in which one could sit and curl and not be seen.  
Jonathan Combs, alone between the bushes, thought about those evading eyes and shifty glances. He thought of lonely college nights to come—maybe to come, if he could even stomach more schooling. For a passing moment, he thought of the annoying, perfect things Sock had said just that day, and, for a moment too long, he thought of the demon himself.

“… Y’know, for someone who doesn’t want to be invisible, you really don’t want people to see you.”

A sigh. “You didn’t leave?”

“I did leave… For a little while. You’ve been sitting here for longer than usual during one of your moods.”

“I don’t have moods. I have—“

“Realizations and reflections, I know.” He wasn’t patronizing. He was annoying, but he didn’t patronize. “Mind if I take a seat?”

“I couldn’t stop you if I tried.”

A few shades of red and brown and light blue plopped down among the dark foliage to his right. Sock sat there, for once, in silence.

“… Y’know,” Sock said, “I don’t know why you care about what they think.”

“They’re my peers, Sock.”

“Yeah, but if they don’t care about you or they’re not willing to talk to you, then they’re not really worth the trouble.”

Jon mulled this over. “… Doesn’t change the fact that I have to spend days on end with them.”

“Yeeeah… But that’s what I’m here for!”

Jon glanced at Sock. “… You’re here to try to make me kill myself.”

“Oh, well… Double duty. I don’t mind the extra work.” His voice raised in pitch in that stupid, annoying, perfect way it did when he was embarrassed.

Stupid, perfect Sock.

Something like a grin pulled at the corner of Jon’s lips, and he looked away. “Gee, thanks. God knows what I’d do without you.” Jon said with blatant sarcasm. In his peripheral vision, he could see fragments of Sock’s face grin.  
“Hm… You’d probably wish you were dead.”

Jonathan breathed out a laugh. “Yeah. Great job with the whole ‘getting me to kill myself’ thing.”

Sock didn’t reply, which was among the most unusual things for Sock to do. Instead, he waited, and eventually he spoke, “Hey, I found another weird passageway in the school. Wanna come check it out with me?”

“… Yeah, sure, why not?”

Jonathan Combs, social outcast, got up from his seat. “This time, though, warn me if there are rats.”

Sock followed him up, laughing. “I will… Probably.”

They walked along, joking, laughing, and being generally annoying. A few times, while Jon let his arm hang limp, his hand would phase through Sock’s, and he would keep it there, fingers intertwined, just for the sake of it.


End file.
